” The UK has found another way to snoop into its citizens’ affairs. Internet and phone companies are set to install so-called ‘black boxes’, which will monitor e-mails, social networking activity and calls, and store data for a year. The authorities insist that only limited details will be kept, but activists are raising privacy concerns. “

” Internet privacy issues are again in the spotlight as a controversial bill is debated in London’s Parliament. Its adoption will allow the UK government to spy on what Brits write and post online.

While authorities say the Communications Data Bill creates a so-called ‘intelligence picture’, critics and lawmakers fear the bill will build a totalitarian online regime in the UK. If adopted, the bill will grant British intelligence full access to UK citizens’ web communications – secret services will be able to monitor who is talking to whom, when, and where in the country.

The UK Home Office says ‘communications data’ will only gather information about the sender and recipient of a piece of communication such as an email or instant message, but not the content of the communication.The architects of the legislation claim the idea is to protect the public against crimes like terrorism and child abuse.

‘Black boxes’ will be installed by internet services providers to filter & decode encrypted materials – including social media and email messages, something which critics say will have an impact on personal privacy.

“As written, it gives the Secretary of State far too broad a power. It allows data collection exercises that are perfectly reasonable – but would also allow pervasive black boxes that would monitor every online information flow; an idea which is clearly unacceptable,” Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP has told the Financial Times.

Internet freedom activists fear this latest infringement on personal liberties will not provide more security.

Web advocate, Aaron Swartz warned RT “either a rogue guy, ISP employees, rogue government officials or hackers [would] just break into the ISP and steal all this personal information.”

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) already grants UK law enforcement the ability to monitor ISP and website phone and email records, but the new document would ensure that all providers keep tabs on their users.

Swartz has told RT the new proposal will be “almost like opening up every letter sent through the post office so the government can make a copy – ‘just in case’.”

UK taxpayers will pick up the estimated £1.8bn cost of the new programme over the next 10 years.

The UK government is creating a massive risk for every citizen and business in the country with such a move, believes Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group.

“If you collect all of this information in one place and then create a sort of secret somewhat protected door for law enforcement to go and view the data and to make queries, then you set that door up to be broken into for absolutely anybody on the Internet,” he told RT. “And that means that there are going to be a lot of people from governments through to criminal gangs who would start thinking ‘this could be really, really useful to us, why don’t we have a go at it.’” “

” On a trip to visit family in Seoul in April, I was approached by a man and a woman who claimed to be North Korean defectors. They requested a meeting the following day to hand over a film that needed to be translated, and I agreed to meet with them. They presented me with a DVD disc that recently came into their possession via the recent arrival of a defector into their group. They asked me to translate the film and “make sure the world saw it” and an agreement was made to protect their identities (and mine). Despite my concerns about what I was viewing when I returned home, I proceeded to translate and post the film on You Tube because of the film’s extraordinary content. I have made public my belief that this film was never intended for a domestic audience in the DPRK. Instead, I believe the ‘defectors’ specifically targeted me because of my reputation as a translator and interpreter. Furthermore, I now believe these people work for the DPRK. The fact that I have continued to translate and post the film in spite of this belief does not make me complicit in their intention to spread their ideology. I chose to keep posting this film because – regardless of who made it – I believe people should see it for the issues it raises, and I stand by my right to keep sharing and discussing this film.

“On May 17 Surrey and West Midlands police forces announced they were putting plans to push through privatisation worth £1.5 billion on hold until after the Olympics, when they would hold a public consultation. The plans have been put on hold because of stiff public opposition.

A survey carried out for Unite revealed that nearly 80 per cent of people polled in the West Midlands didn’t realise their police services were up for sale. The union had blamed WMP for trying to rush through the plans. Unite is warning that if West Midlands Police is eventually privatised it could begin a snowball effect with police forces selling off services to private companies across England and Wales.”

” Absolutely shocking. That you even have to ‘apply’ to relinquish what you never signed up for is intellectually insulting. That you cannot do so freely, and immediately, is nothing short of totalitarian.

…

Then there’s the latest, greatest tax target: accidental US citizens. This group consists of foreigners who happen to be dual nationals because they were born in the US or have an American parent.

…

Citizenship is nothing more than accident of birth. Yet in the modern nation-state paradigm, governments lay claim to citizens from the time they’re born as if we’re property.

Children are saddled with obligations that they never signed up for– taxes, compulsory military service, a debilitating national debt, etc.

Most countries at least have procedures to voluntarily surrender citizenship for those who choose to opt out of the system; in the United States, it is contained in section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The process usually takes place overseas at a US consulate– you have to fill out a series of forms, swear an oath in front of a government official, and eventually file a final tax return. Some people even have to pay a steep ‘exit tax’ on the value of their assets.

I know dozens who have done this, and from what my friends tell me, many of the consular officials attempt to impugn, insult, or otherwise intimidate people looking to surrender their citizenship. It’s their last-ditch effort to keep the milk cows from escaping the dairy farm.

…

But in what may be the most distinguishing mark of a totalitarian state, the US government has now officially prevented someone from freely leaving the system. The Soviet Union comes to mind.

It certainly does make one wonder to what desperate lows they will sink to next. “